New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made calls this week for his resignation or indictment after damaging new details emerged about the state’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak in nursing homes and subsequent withholding important information on the death toll – with even democratic critics who called for greater transparency from the governors’ office.
This is not the first ethical scandal that has fueled Cuomo’s long tenure.
In April 2014, Cuomo provoked criticism after dissolving the so-called Moreland Commission, a public corruption watchdog panel he had set up just a few months earlier.
In this September 14, 2018 file photo, Secretary of State Melissa DeRosa is speaking with New York Government Andrew Cuomo during a news conference in New York with reporters. According to De Democratic lawmakers, De Rosa, Cuomo’s top assistant, told the top. Democrats are frustrated with the government’s lengthy announcement about the deaths of nursing homes that the government has ‘frozen’ over concerns about what information will be used against us. who attended the meeting on Wednesday 10 February 2021 and a partial transcript by the Governor’s Office. (AP Photo / Mary Altaffer, file)
The 25-member commission, made up of a number of prosecutors in New York, spent nine months investigating political corruption and campaign finance violations, until Cuomo closed it, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
The sudden end was part of an agreement with state legislators that led to the creation of new ethical rules in Albany, the state capital.
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But the strike came before the commission completed its investigation into numerous lawmakers, and Cuomo is accused of interfering with his work and on the lookout for his political allies.
The New York Times reported in July 2014 that Cuomo’s office had “hampered” the commission’s efforts and that Cuomo’s then-secretary of state, Lawrence Schwartz, had allegedly told members to withdraw their investigation into an advertising company. which counts the governor under his. customers.
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Cuomo’s current secretary of state, Melissa DeRosa, was named in a New York Post bombing on Thursday over a leaked conference call with top state Democrats over the government’s controversial handling of the coronavirus pandemic in nursing homes.
On Friday, DeRosa addressed the call.
‘I explained that when we received the DOJ inquiry, we had to temporarily set aside the request of the Legislature [about data on the nursing home crisis] to deal with the federal request first, “she said. As I said during a call with lawmakers, we could not comply with their request as quickly as anyone would like. But we are committed to being better partners in the future, as we have the same goal of keeping New Yorkers as healthy as possible during the pandemic. ‘
In 2014, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, seized the commission’s paperwork and kept where it left off after Cuomo closed it, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Bharara has been convicted of two key political figures: former Democrat Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican.
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Bharara also launched a nearly two-year investigation into the handling of the Cuomo government commission, but he gave up after “finding insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime”.